


Moving Forward

by Emmeebee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Grief/Mourning, One Shot, POV Second Person, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 10:50:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20173027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmeebee/pseuds/Emmeebee
Summary: Moving on is such a strange concept. Time passes, and you do things, yet you aren’t moving on.





	Moving Forward

**Author's Note:**

> For r/FanFiction’s August 2019 challenge with the prompt ‘second person POV’.

The world’s closing in on all sides. Chest tight, your breath comes out in short gasps, shallow and searching. It’s all you can do to stay standing. You’re folding in on yourself, in and in like origami, each creased edge a border you’ll have to climb and scramble and fight to get back over later.

You’re losing this territory war, losing and losing and losing...

Soon you’ll have nothing left; no ground for retreat, no weapons to use, no cavalry to ride in and save you.

‘Parvati!’

Your vision blurs.

You fall.

Everything goes white.

-x-

The next thing you know, you’re blinking up at the sun, eyes blinded by the harsh glare. Chatter surrounds you, but you can’t make out individual words or voices. You’re lying flat on soft grass, and someone’s holding a wet cloth to your forehead. As if the issue is as simple as heat stroke.

You wish. If it were, the remedy would be just as straightforward.

Lavender’s dead.

Even thinking the words breaks your heart.

She’s gone, ravaged by Greyback in a forgotten corner of the battlefield. Your best friend, her spark snuffed out while your back was turned.

What if you’d been there? Could you have fought him back together? Would it have been enough?

Maybe yes. Maybe no. You’ll never know, and it kills you.

Only it doesn’t. Not like it did her.

‘Parvati, are you alright?’ It’s your sister, her hair streaked with dirt and dried blood and expression overflowing with concern.

‘No.’

You love her, but McGonagall was right when she said that at Hogwarts, your house is like your family. After seven years of sharing a dorm with Lavender, your friendship is closer than any you’ve ever known.

She was the first person you turned to when you almost failed Transfiguration in second year because you couldn’t concentrate due to the attacks, and when your uncle got sick, and when you came home from a date with Justin in tears because he kissed you and all you could think about was when it would be over.

She was the _only _person you turned to when you started thinking that maybe you didn’t like anyone that way at all, and that maybe that was okay.

‘Where’s Madam Pomfrey?’ a male voice calls out.

‘I’m not hurt,’ you say, but then that’s not true at all. ‘I don’t need her,’ you say, which isn’t as much of a lie.

After all, it isn’t her you need. It’s Lavender.

If it had been anyone else, she’s the one you would have mourned with.

-x-

Moving on is such a strange concept. Time passes, and you do things; you draw and you study and you spend time with your friends. In that sense, you’re moving on.

Yet you aren’t _moving_ _on_.

At times, you don’t think you’ll ever feel whole again. You may not have had a panic attack since that day, but normality has been thrown out the window.

-x-

One day, it comes to you; a brief, fleeting memory. It’s from fifth year, back before the cloud of darkness blocked out the sun.

Everyone has been in to talk to McGonagall about their career goals, and you and Lavender both told her you’re not sure. You’re interested in running a business like your father does, but you have no idea what field, and Lavender’s never been one to tie herself to any one future.

(Like a bird, she fluttered around until she fluttered away.)

You’re sitting in the Great Hall, laughing about a joke Seamus made as Lavender takes his empty teacup. You’ve both been practising your leaf readings, studying the symbols so you won’t have to refer to your textbooks as often.

For the past few months, you’ve both been swiping any used teacup you can, even if you don’t know who it belongs to. The results have been fascinating.

Lavender frowns down at the cup, her lips moving silently as she thinks. Then her eyes light up and, beaming, she starts to interpret the results for Seamus.

He’s watching her with obvious awe.

‘You know, you could do this for a living,’ Seamus suggests when she’s finished.

‘At Muggle country fairs?’ Lavender asks disdainfully. ‘Most people don’t want regular readings.’

‘Most people don’t know someone who’s any good at them,’ he shoots back.

‘It’s not a bad idea,’ you say. ‘We could start a teashop and offer readings on the side.’

The three of you spend the next two hours brainstorming and daydreaming. Like a snowball careening down a mountain, it grows and grows until you’re struggling to even keep up with all the ideas you’re throwing out.

All three of you live in a blissful state of excitement and possibility for a few weeks, your focus only shifting when it comes time to start your O.W.L.s. Then, the news comes out that He Who Must Not Be Named has returned, and all thoughts of it slip your mind.

-x-

‘Seamus,’ you say via Floo call that night, ‘I have an idea.’

-x-

Two years later, Parvatea opens for business in Hogsmeade. It’s a joint venture between you and Seamus; he handles the customer service while you do the readings, and you share the bookwork. You originally wanted to name it after Lavender, but after Seamus suggested the pun, it was too perfect to resist.

Instead, you honour her in the design. The walls are painted a faint shade of purple, and the tables’ centrepieces are all magically preserved lavenders in glass vases. The theme is tasteful; if someone didn’t know about Lavender, they’d think you just like the flower. But it makes it feel like part of her is still there.

Both aspects of the business go well. There is, as Seamus said, a market for people who actually do this well. Patrons Apparate in from all over the country, and the horde of preteen girls that flock in every time Hogwarts has a Hogsmeade weekend certainly doesn’t hurt.

In them, you see you and Lavender at their age – wide-eyed dreamers trying to work out what life had to offer you.

Over time, as wrong as it feels, you start to move – not on, but forward.


End file.
